Republicans had better be very sure that their politics are adequate.
The fact that sections of the Loyalists are now hostile to Britain does not mean that they will move towards common political conclusions, On the contrary, they will scatter in at least three directions.
Faulkner and the Assembly Executive may be able to win or buy support from the skilled protestant worken, particularly in the shipyards. Sandy Scott of the Northern Ireland Labour Party, who is a leading shop steward in the yards, has forcibly pointed out that the immediate conomic interests of the shipyard workers Be with the Union, the British market and British subsidies, The NILP could revive itself on this platform.
The sectarianism of the Loyalist organisations has not yet been destroyed, Their hatred of Britain overshadows their hostility to the catholjos and a united Ireland, but only because Britain has sold out the Protestant Ascendancy. And a small section of the Loyalists, ably assisted by the Military Reaction Force, will try to wreck any rapprochement between Loyalists and Republicans, through intimidation and assassination. "A section of the Loyalists will, doubtless, jump over the wall, and join with the Republicans in fighting for a new Ireland... The Republicans must act now to ensure that the largest possible forces are drawn into this category.' If, to take advantage of the new situation in the North, the above steps are ne casary. then what we are talking about is the transfor mation of the anti-imperialist struggle in the North into a much broader struggle which spalls over into the working class socialist revolution.
The challenge to the Republicans can be summed up in one question: Does the frish revolution consist of those measures necessary to drive the Bruish out of freiand, or is the smashing of British imperatism the mort important component of a much broader and more profound process which will trans form freland, politicals, economicrily and The answer given to that question delinentes the boundaries between the revolutionary Republicans, and the revolutionary socialsts in Ireland today, just as the attitude to the national struggle has separated the revolutionaries from the reformisis.
This is the first of we orticles. In the next, Boh Pardie will trke up the Republican Movement's policy on regionai government.